3 AM
by timeworn grace
Summary: Missing scene, spoils 2.03, "Grilled Cheesus."
1. Chapter 1

3 AM (Will Schuester)

He goes from a sound sleep to sitting bolt upright and wide awake, and his heart is pounding. For one moment he doesn't even know what woke him.

Then he remembers. It must have been in the back of his memory, surfacing in a dream. Kurt's voice: "No, she's dead, this is her son...".

From the "hello"assignment. Just a slightly morbid joke then, but now...

Kurt's mother is dead. Where is Kurt staying? Is he home, _alone_? Still at the hospital?

Everyone's been so concerned with the state of Kurt's_ soul_. They're all worried about whether or not he_ prays_... Will wonders now if Kurt's remembering to _eat._ Where he's sleeping. IF he's sleeping.

Has anyone even thought of the more concrete issue - that there is a sixteen year old boy with no other family that Will knows of, no one else to take care of him? Has anyone even checked? He's not been staying with Finn and his mother, Will knows that much. And there's been a distance between Kurt and Mercedes as well.

And it's entirely in character that Kurt would try to manage on his own, Will realizes. He's been showing up to school, not a hair out of place, but... drifting. Distant in a whole new way. He's hollowed out - only Kurt's body has been present for days now.

Will is out of bed and throwing on the first clothes he can grab before he's really thinking clearly. And he realizes that he can't just knock on the Hummel's door at this hour of the morning. If Kurt is asleep, he certainly needs the rest.

But if he's not...

He decides to check at the hospital first. There is a family waiting lounge outside the ICU that's open 24/7 for cases like this.

And, of course, Kurt is there, sprawled out on one of the armchairs, a textbook on the floor where it dropped from his hands when exhaustion finally overcame him.

He is alone.

And in his sleep, Will can see the traces of the pain Kurt tries to hide, in the faint tracks of the tears that run into his hairline, and the way his hair is all spikes from raking his fingers through it. As Will watches from the doorway, Kurt stirs, curls onto one side into the chair.

A nurse touches Will on the arm; she is carrying a blanket, and she gestures to indicate that it's for Kurt. Wordlessly Will takes it from her, nodding thanks, and drapes it over the sleeping child gently. He settles into the chair across from Kurt, and watches over him while he sleeps.


	2. Chapter 2

It's a couple of hours later, and Will is watching the traffic far below the narrow windows and sipping from the Styrofoam cup of coffee one of the nurses brought him soon after he arrived (a tiny, sparrow-like, older woman, the one who brought the blanket, who seems to have made Kurt a special project, checking in on him every hour or so unobtrusively. And now she's adopted Will, as well). It's been so quiet on the floor, even when they brought in another patient and settled her into the room next to Kurt's father's, that when the alert goes off it's shockingly loud.

Will turns from the window in time to see Kurt uncoil and launch himself from the chair even before he's fully awake. The blanket slides to the floor unheeded as Kurt looks around the room for a second like he isn't sure where he is. He doesn't even seem to see Will. When he consciously registers the sound of the alert and the team of doctors and nurses rushing past the waiting room door, Kurt goes absolutely gray. He stumbles towards the doorway, but his feet catch in the fabric and trip him up. Only Will's quick reaction saves him from landing in an ungainly heap on the floor - Will crosses the little room in two quick steps and catches him in his arms, and guides him around the puddle of cloth.

Kurt seems to get stuck at the door, clinging to the frame with one hand and to Will's arm with the other, as Will shifts so he can put his arm around Kurt's shoulders. Kurt watches the crash cart with wide, frightened eyes as it is wheeled hurriedly down the hall, in a flurry of white coats and medical jargon. Will's pretty sure he's holding his breath.

When it moves past the door of the room where Burt Hummel lies, Kurt closes his eyes briefly and leans his forehead against the door frame. He's breathing like he ran a marathon, like he's just surfaced from somewhere deep underwater. A drowning man, reprieved.

Will can feel Kurt's shoulders begin to shake as he pulls the teen away from the door. He really wishes Emma were here. He doesn't know how to help, what to do, except to hold on tighter when Kurt sort of seems to become aware of him and starts to pull away from him with a murmur of… apology?

He shakes his head, making soothing noises, and pulls Kurt into a hug, all the while wondering if he's really helping at all, because of all his students Kurt is the one who is likely to react like an offended cat when anyone touches him. He almost never seems _to want_ to be touched. But after a scary moment where Will thinks he might have pushed too hard and Kurt goes very still and very stiff, the boy just sags into his arms and slowly, tentatively brings his arms up, and then he's hanging on to Will like he's the only thing keeping him afloat.

Will has seen Kurt cry before, always just one or two tears escaping before he can quite push whatever he's feeling back behind all those walls he hides behind, his emotions nearly always (only) set free by music. It's almost always silent, never as dramatic as the boy's quick temper often is.

It's eerie.

And even now, as Will holds him, and he knows that Kurt is crying - can feel hot tears soaking his shoulder - Kurt doesn't really sob, like Will would have expected. He just goes taut, curled in on himself against Will's shoulder, like an over-wound spring, for a frighteningly long time where Will isn't certain he's even breathing, then something seems to release and he draws in a painful deep, shuddery breath, and it all starts again. Will is pretty sure that, if he were to make a sound at all, Kurt would be _keening_, this is so raw and primal, but he's utterly silent except for those choking, wrenching breaths.

It really frightens Will.

And he knows that Kurt just can't go on like this, his body just can't sustain this for much longer at this level of intensity. He is sure that when this passes Kurt is going to be exhausted; he's already leaning heavily on Will as it is. So Will manages to get them into the chairs, before they both fall down, and is seriously debating calling one of the nurses to see if he can get them to bring a sedative, something to calm Kurt down, when Kurt seems to slowly get control of himself again. He takes one more deep breath-one that almost sounds normal- releasing it slowly, and sits back, pulling away from Will. This time, Will lets him go.

Kurt sits back against the chair, and covers his flushed face with both hands for a long moment, before wiping the tears from his face and then digging in his pocket for a small pack of tissues. He blows his nose, tosses the tissue into the trash, and slumps against the seat-back, his eyes locked on his hands, twisting in his lap, shredding a fresh tissue. "Sorry," he finally whispers.

Will kind of wants to shake him, very gently, of course. Instead, he just pats Kurt on the arm. "It's ok," he says, knowing that Kurt is already regretting the loss of composure in front of anyone else.

"I've been surprised that you've been able to hold it together at all this week, Kurt. I know I'd be a wreck."


	3. Chapter 3

The petite nurse stops in on her way back to the nurses' station and pats Kurt on the arm in a comforting gesture ( and one that he does not shy away from as Will would expect from his normal behavior at school). She tells him with a conspiratorial smile that they will be very busy at the desk doing paperwork – five minutes, no more—and Will watches him slip quietly down the gleaming white hallway into his father's room, after giving her a grateful little smile.

Then again, at school, Will suspects, most of the hands reaching for Kurt often mean him harm. And Kurt has been, if anything, even more prickly than usual this week. His friends have been sort of caught up in the religion issue, and not cutting him much slack for the emotional turmoil he's going through. Now that Will has seen it up close, he wishes he'd said more to them about supporting Kurt in a time when he needs his friends and doesn't know how to ask. He hasn't even seen _Mercedes_ hug Kurt since Will had had had to tell them they couldn't sing about their faith anymore.

Will ends up taking Kurt down to the cafeteria for breakfast, watching him silently pick apart a fruit and yogurt concoction and not eat more than a few bites. (A grape. A spoonful of the yogurt. Two bites of melon. Half a strawberry. Not that Will's counting.)

The only thing on the table that gets finished is the coffee, with Kurt matching Will's three cups, black, though Kurt puts in a scant teaspoon of Splenda. He spends a long time stirring it, slowly. Watching the dark liquid swirl. He doesn't look at Will.

Finally, Will breaks the silence. "Kurt. Do you need a ride home… or… anything?"

Kurt glances at him in surprise. The sun is beginning to paint the sky gold and just a little bit pink. There will be rain today, Will thinks, remembering old farmers' wisdom. With the daylight, the vulnerable, scared kid Will held a short time ago is being pushed back, locked in behind all of Kurt's usual defenses. Will can see it happening.

It hurts to watch it.

"No, thanks," Kurt is polite, but a little cool now, and distant. "My car is here." He looks out the window for a few moments, then back over at Will with a flash of what might pass for normal Kurt Hummel defiance. "Dad took the keys away last week after I got sent to Fi- to Principal Figgins' office," and the resentment that edges his voice is clearly meant for Will more than for his father's punishment. "But under the circumstances, I figured he wouldn't want me stranded without transportation."

Will looks down to hide the pang of guilt that stabs at him. He was_ right_ to send Kurt to the office, he's sure of it – there was a line between disagreement and disrespect, and Kurt had crossed it with his last few words. And there was no way to predict that within a week his student would be facing this. He looks back up; Kurt is back to staring bleakly into the depths of his coffee cup again, his expression unguarded for the moment because he doesn't realize Will is looking at him again.

Or maybe he's just too tired to hide any more.

When he looks up and meets Will's eyes, for a moment Will's convinced that Kurt is about to go off on him again, but the young man just sighs and looks back out the window at the sunrise. "Thanks for…" he gestures at the table, but somehow Will knows it includes the whole night, "…everything, Mr. Schuester. I'll see you in school."

He's up and gone before Will can say anything else, scooping up his book-bag, not looking back. Will is left staring at Kurt's barely-touched breakfast and with all his questions still unanswered.

Well, not really. He knows now. Kurt is struggling to handle this alone, and barely keeping it together. It's wearing him down - and not slowly any more.

If his father… dies… Kurt will really be alone, and Will thinks that might just break him. If that happens, who will be there to hold him together?


End file.
